


sometimes it takes a heartbreak (to shake us awake)

by navree



Category: Pundit & Broadcast Journalist RPF (US), Real News RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-18 05:09:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20633606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/navree/pseuds/navree
Summary: You'll hear him, voice laden, heavy with grief as if he's lost something he can't replace, as if someone has died.What happens when the couple no one thinks will break up try and break up?





	sometimes it takes a heartbreak (to shake us awake)

**Author's Note:**

> y'all can blame his fuckass book for the fact that i'm back on my bullshit  
as always, comments (either positive or constructive) are always welcome and much appreciated!

No one ever expects the golden couple to break up. They're the Golden Couple, capital g and capital c. You see them together and you think,_ They're going to grow old together_. Like it's a foregone conclusion. Because you can't really think of any other way this could play out. They're supposed to end up together. Yes he's a bit older than her, and yes it sometimes seems like they have nothing in common, but what is the other option? That they break up? 

They can't. They're the kind of couple that kiss each other hello and goodbye every single day, without fail, the kind that always wake up curled around each other in bed. His eyes always shine whenever he's near her; she always has the brightest smile on her face whenever she's near him. They hold hands, even though they've been together for years now. He rests his head on her shoulder when he's tired, and she'll put her feet on his lap when her heels start to ache.

Or maybe they'll be a little bit drunk and a bit too handsy and flirty and giggly. They'll disappear into a bathroom and reemerge many minutes looking far too put together. 

And you'll realize that they're the kind of couple who help tidy each other up after they fuck.

They're equals. You know that he's cautious, that he cares so much for her safety, that he thinks of himself as her protector, but that doesn't mean that she's weak. She's strong, in her own way, is more than ready to find just the right cutting words if you irritate her enough, if you go after someone or something she cares about. She's smart and witty and it leaves him breathless, the way that she can find the core of a problem and unknot it, the same way she's speechless at his bravery, bravery that she continually finds astonishing. 

They fit together, the two of them, like pieces of a puzzle, perfectly slotted to each other. Even their looks channel primal book ends: fire and ice, sun and moon, blonde and silver. How can you look at them and not think that love fits them perfectly, that they'll stay together forever?

Except maybe you live in the apartment next to hers, and you hear raised voices one morning, not quite shouting but definitely something close to angry and most certainly sad. Maybe you hear him slam the door as he leaves, or hear her muffled crying once he's outside but hasn't quite gathered up the nerve to walk away yet. Maybe you hear his voice wobble when he hisses _ dammit _ to himself.

Maybe you see him in the elevator, his face desperately sad and his hair messy and his dark eyes ringed with red. You might even notice, if you're observant, that shiny quality his eyes have, not the glassy of unshed tears but the wash of having already cried. You might see the way he stalks out once he reaches the ground floor, stiff, as if he's in pain. 

Say, you could see her at the CNN offices, looking tired and not nearly as composed as she generally is. She might have her head resting against her hand, looking tired and beaten down and almost unbearably heartbroken. You might see her swallow the lump in her throat as she says, "Who was it who said that all good things have to come to end?" with a slight crack at the end.

Or you hear his friend, on the plane, ask him, "Is everything okay?" And you'll hear him. You'll hear him, voice laden, heavy with grief as if he's lost something he can't replace, as if someone has died. He'll say, "I think Elizabeth and I just broke up."

Canada is a truly beautiful country. And all Jim wants to do is get drunk until he forgets his own name. 

That's funny. That can't happen, though not for the reason most people would think. Most would think that he's too vain and self centered to ever even forget his own name, that he loves himself too much for it to even be an expression. Ha ha, Jim Acosta is an attention whore; he might be an actual whore too did you see what Page Six said? He's also too high functioning to even get that kind of sloppy drunk anymore. 

Maybe once, he could. In college, when life seemed like it would be good moment after good moment, or during the campaign, when it seemed like someone had shot goodness as a concept through the heart. But he's gotten too good at alcoholism to ever get frat boy fall down drunk these days. 

It might be a good thing. The view from his room is gorgeous, the colors always seem more vibrant in Canada, and the air is the right kind of warm where it stops just short of muggy but definitely feels like summer, not nearly as oppressive as it can be in DC. Why would he want to be anything other than happy and sober during this trip, especially when he has to work?

_ "Are you breaking up with me?" _ It was the way Liz said it, hesitant and almost breathless and so very hurt. The exact opposite of what he'd wanted. Why would he ever want to be happy or sober when that's what he left behind?

"...and then we can get drinks with Sarah Sanders?" Matt does that sometimes, when he knows that Jim is lost in his head, throws in bizarre comments that tend to grab his attention. Jim tries his best to shake himself out of his self pity over an issue of his own making. 

"Sorry." Matt smiles.

"At least you were kinda paying attention," he says, shifting his weight. "I was just saying that we can hit up that hole in the wall we found the last time we were here once work is done." Jim shrugs, turning away from the bright sun in the window. 

"We'll see how long I make it before jetlag demands I sleep," he answers, trying very hard to keep his voice light. Matt's face is sympathetic; he didn't fall for it. 

"This Liz thing," and Jim tries not to cringe, "it'll blow over. Maybe even by the time we get to Singapore. Whatever you guys are fighting about'll seem like small potatoes once we're back home."

"You think so?"

"Couples fight all the time, and they turn out fine." Jim shoots him a look, and Matt blanches. 

It's fine. Matt was with Sarah Murray that year, he doesn't know just how bad things got with Sharon in the end. They weren't huge blow out arguments, just icy stares and stiff bodies and that kind of clenched jaw _ yes we're mad about everything with each other and I know what you did with him and what you did with her but we have children so let's see if we can make it work _ attitude that made him want to scream half the time he was in his own bed. Just a long, protracted fight that came at the tail end of a marriage doomed to fail, apparently. Mostly because of him.

And he doesn't want that with Liz. Matt's right, couples fight and they end up fine, but what if this one is different? He doesn't want to live in a time where he hates her. The mere idea leaves him mildly nauseous. 

"You're probably right," is what he tells Matt. If Jim wanted to open up about his swirl of emotions to someone, he could pick up his phone and dial his girlfriend. Except he can't, because she might not even be his girlfriend anymore. 

Andra, upon hearing the entire story, decides that they should set Jim's things on fire. Liz vetoes that idea immediately. 

"You could at least rip up the ugly JMU sweater." 

"We're not doing anything to his stuff or to his sweater," Liz says, biting back the fact that it's basically her's now. It's been her's longer than they've actually been together, and even if it is over, she's not giving it back. She'll give Jim the rest of the stuff he's left over at the apartment when he comes back from the Quebec/Singapore trip, if he wants, but that sweater is staying. It's warm. 

"Can we at least burn the notebooks?" Andra asks, holding a steno pad gingerly between two fingers like it's offended her. Liz has to laugh, even just a little bit as she snatches it out of her hand. 

"You never touch a reporter's notebook." Thank God for Andra. If she'd been in Boston, Liz would probably be curled up on her bed right now, trying desperately hard not to sob her eyes and remind herself that relationships that start out via infidelity and two decades of an age difference never, ever, end up well. 

She's already doing those things, yes, but at least she's also capable of the occasional chuckle as she does them. It's the small mercies, in times like this. 

"Can I touch a reporter's face? With my fist?" It's commendable that Andra wants to, but Liz still shakes her head no. She decides to bundle all of Jim's things into a singular box, just so that her roommate doesn't take a blow torch to them. She understands why she's acting this way, but there's a small part of her, even when she's still mad and maybe heartbroken, that wants to defend Jim's honor. 

"Look, to be honest?" She rakes a hand through her hair and leans against the wall. "I get why he did it." 

"Explain it, please?" Andra demands, sitting on the couch. "Because I don't get it. How did we get from you guys being so into each other I get kicked out of my own place so that you two can do the nasty in solitude to," she waves her hand at Liz, who assumes, based on how much her eyes still sting, that the physical effects of her post maybe break up crying jag haven't gone away yet, "this?"

"He wants to 'protect' me." It sounds so stupid the instant Liz says it. 

It should sound stupid. She's not two years old, she's not a child, she's not his daughter. He doesn't need to protect her from the world, she's seen the world and she can handle herself just fine. She's a grown woman, she can take care of herself and protect herself if she wants to. She definitely doesn't need some guy taking it upon himself to do it for her by going full _ Encino Man _. 

"_Have you seen the things people say, Elizabeth? The things they want to do? _"

Jim never really talks about this stuff with her. Maybe he's never wanted her to worry about it. But Liz has eyes, has ears, she knows that he gets death threats and other horrible, awful things they think are acceptable to say because he's got a blue check next to his name and they'll never see him or know him or understand that pinched nerve look he gets when someone says they want to go after him with a machete or drive his children into a lake. 

And apparently Jim thinks that the best way to make sure she doesn't have to worry about that is to ask about breaking up

"By dumping you?" Liz shrugs. "OK, did he ask you what _ you _ wanted?" Liz would laugh, at how bang on the money Andra is, if there was anything funny about this at all. 

"No. He did not." That's what hurt. Jim decided this, unilaterally, without even thinking that maybe she doesn't care about all of that. Maybe what she cares about is her boyfriend. 

Ex-boyfriend?

So far, it's been the usual, a rinse and repeat of almost every foreign trip so far, nothing new or exciting from their side, even though it's always supposed to be new and exciting.

The only thing that's been of any note so far is this G6+1 the French are putting out. Some of Jim's sources at the White House are in an uproar about it, others think that it's a blessing in disguise. Jim thinks it's mildly nauseating that it's all happening, but there's something commendable in the way the French are commandeering this idea of separating America from everyone else, like a child throwing a tantrum. 

What was it Liz told him when they were in Paris?

"_The French can be remarkably petty sometimes, _" she had told him, as they were wandering back to their hotel at two in the morning. She had been leaning his shoulder for the latter half of the walk, tired, and it was well before they got together, well before he ever touched her but Jim has looked back and wondered, since then, if maybe that was the first time they crossed the line from friends into something more. 

"They speak French in Quebec, right?" he asks, turning to Jeff. He looks confused. 

"Yeah, I think?" He looks like he's trying to subtly eye Jim's sobriety without making it too obvious. Luckily for Jeff, this is his first beer of the day. "Why do you ask?" 

_ Because I find it's ironic that I might have started falling for my girlfriend in a French speaking city and now I'm wondering if I actually managed to break up with her before heading off to a French speaking country. _

See? Ironic. 

"No reason," he says instead. 

Jim shouldn't have done it. He knows why he did it and he thinks he'd try to do it again, albeit it maybe a bit gentler, and not so out of the blue, but still. He didn't want to do it. There was no burning desire to try and leave her. Sometimes it hurts just to go and cover rallies and spend time away from her. It's for the best, for safety's sake. 

But still.

"Singapore'll be fun," he tells Jeff, fake jovial, enough light sarcasm to let people know that he's fine, just being uncharacteristically introspective. "Can't wait." Jeff laughs, and he remembers a different laugh, on a different foreign trip, and fingers light on his arm.

He shouldn't have done it. Jim knows he had to do it, and yet he regrets it. 

It's been a day and Liz is already regretting how she handled this, alone in the elevator and twisting her fingers together so tight it hurts.

Not getting mad at him, not calling him out on his BS. The rationale behind his sudden desire to end things is patronizing and almost offensive, and if Jim called her right now to try it again, she'd probably react the same way. Tell him that it's nonsense, that he's treating her like a child and that it's not his unilateral decision to try and protect her like they're living in the 1300s. 

But then she told him to leave. That's what Liz would change. 

They'd been on the cusp of full on yelling and Liz's eyes were stinging when an alarm beeped on her phone. It was loud enough that Jim flinched, and she'd been fishing it out to turn it off and go back to going around in circles on the issue when she realized it was the alarm she'd set to make sure he left for the airport on time. 

_ That's how much I care_, she wanted to tell him. _ That's how much I love you, fuck what Bobby Joe in Alabama thinks he's gonna do if he ever sees us when he can't even scrape together enough money to rent a goddamn car _. 

"_You're gonna miss your plane._" That's what she'd told him instead, and Jim had just gaped at her as if she'd started speaking Farsi. And all of the sudden Liz needed him gone, now, or she was going to do something stupid like cry or beg him not to dump her and that's not who she is. 

"_Elizabeth-_" 

"_Just._" And she should have told him to call Zucker and pretend to have the flu or something so that they could talk this out, properly. "_Go and get on your flight. Okay?_" And he left with heavy steps and then she did cry and the elevator door is dinging open and Liz has to remember that no one at work is that interested in her personal life that she can stumble in looking like a wreck when she's supposed to be professional. 

Except she gets to her desk and almost goes into hysterics. 

Someone left a Coke bottle on her desk. With the name "Acosta" on it, which is really their own fault because they've never been very good at being subtle with their relationship. It's fun, lighthearted teasing, and if Liz had to hazard a guess she'd lay the blame on Noah. It's his style of humor. 

It's like Andra's over the top reaction yesterday. Liz has to laugh, just because it's actually something to laugh about, and on any other occasion she would have gotten a chuckle after seeing this. So she's working on autopilot when she sits down and turns on the screen on her desk and she will blame autopilot later for the fact that when she sees Jim's face appear next to the Coke bottle the first thing she does is snap a picture of it on her phone. 

Ordinarily, what happens next is that she would send it to him, often with some punchy accompaniment and he would send her back some dumb emoji because he really acts like a sixty year old man half the time. They'd talk about it later, on the phone, warm in the dark. Liz knows that's not necessarily an option now, when they might be done, when he wants them to be done, but. 

She wants to. She shouldn't. But she wants to. She shouldn't. But she fucking _ wants _ to. Even though they might be over, and maybe he wants her to lose his number. Maybe she should want him to lose her's. 

Liz sends him the picture. No flirty text to accompany, but still. She's opened a line of communication.

They're about five minutes from takeoff when he gets it. Jim thinks his phone is glitching at first, given that the last thing he's been expecting is the name _ Elizabeth _ to pop up on his lock screen. She should be hating him, it's what he expected to happen. Instead, there's a picture of a coke bottle with his name on it next to his face. She was watching his piece, she was watching him on TV. It's not new, but the circumstances are, and something tightens in his chest. 

He types out something simple, just two words: _ Thank you. _

Jim wants her to know that it isn't because he doesn't want her anymore. That what he did, what he tried to do, what he may or may not have succeeded in doing, wasn't because the love ran out. He could tell her that right now; he could call her and tell her, "I love you. I love you I love you I love you it's because I love you." She would take offense to that though, the way she did when he tried to explain it before he left for Quebec, that he thinks she's not tough enough to handle this. That he doesn't trust her to take care of herself. 

"_What's the real reason here, Jim? _" Her face was pale and her body very still and rigid, in a way he's never seen before, not around him. Except for then, because of him.

They're in the air, and Jim all but slams the window closed and orders a gin and tonic. He'll be honest with himself, then. That's what she wanted. And he was telling the truth, but there's more; if anything happens to Liz, that's on him. Because of him. People are fucking nuts these days and that's why they aren't nearly as public as they could be with their relationship and if something happens to her it's on his conscience. Now. Forever. It may be selfish, but he doesn't want that. 

And he doesn't want a twenty six year old girl feeling that she needs to be able to handle things like death threats and lunatic rednecks for, what, him? She's young and Jim doesn't think he's worth that effort. She deserves more. Better. There, Elizabeth, there's one of those real reasons you were looking for?

Jim knocks back the rest of his drink and feels himself tremble. 

"Maybe you should just dump him yourself when he gets back." That's Andra's new line of attack, three days into this when the White House corps have already landed in Singapore. They're sharing a bottle of wine and watching MSNBC as a metaphorical _ fuck you _. 

"That's not gonna happen," Liz says, pouring herself another glass. She's not Jim, but she can hold her liquor reasonably well. 

"Why not?" Liz doesn't answer. She knows why, but she doesn't answer. Andra would call her an idiot, and maybe she is, but she's probably never going to end this relationship on her own terms. 

Liz takes the remote and switches the channel to CNN. 

Matt takes him drinking the morning after they arrive in Singapore. Not that Jim plans on getting wasted. The view is gorgeous over the water and they'll have to work soon anyway. 

"You could try texting her." Matt doesn't know about the Coke bottle, and the fact that Liz hasn't said anything to him since then. Maybe she blocked him. That's a thing you can do on iPhones, right?

"I don't really think she wants to hear from me right now," Jim says, taking a swig of his drink. "She already basically ordered me to leave her apartment." 

"You're _ mad _ about that?" 

"God no!" No, he's not angry at her about it. If she had come up to him and seemingly out of the blue tried to maybe sorta-kinda break up right before she was about to leave for a trip, he might have wanted her out too. Or he might have begged her to stay, it seems like something he would do. More at himself for creating the situation. "No I just. I just think she wants some space." Matt hums.

"Maybe Liz _ doesn't _ want space." If Jim were a more hopeful man, he would hope for that. 

Andra doesn't want to go on her Boston vacation with Patrick after the Jim thing. Liz understands why, but she desperately needs some time to process it on her own, so she manages to convince her to take a vacation. Besides, who wants to spend time with their despondent roommate when they can enjoy a few days with their boyfriend instead?

If Patrick had tried to float the idea of breaking up to Andra right before he had to leave on a trip and she was subsequently trying to figure out if they were actually still together or if she should try Tinder for the first time in her life, would Liz have stayed rather than go on a trip with Jim? Probably, she considers herself a relatively good friend. 

Jim would understand, if the roles were reversed. It's funny, he'd probably be outraged on her behalf. And Liz would be secure in the knowledge that she and Jim wouldn't end up like that, that they've known each other for so many years at this point, that they were friends long before they ever got together, that this is-_ was? _-a relationship built on trust and understanding and those tend to last. 

Liz isn't cynical, or else she would be thinking that a man who's already divorced one woman who gave him two children might not be the most dependable of partners. 

She fishes out her phone, looks at that text Jim sent her after her impulsive picture: _ Thank you _. Like she does him a favor just by talking to him, existing. He's not the kind of guy more cynical people would think he is. 

"Goddammit." She's alone with herself and Andra's puppy is sleeping already and that's the only way she can verbalize how she feels about all of this. Because Liz knows, she _ knows _, that his "I want to break up with you to protect you from myself" nonsense wasn't an excuse he pulled out of the blue to get out of this relationship. It's his genuine reason, something he probably agonized over before deciding to say it. 

But _ goddammit _ it hurt. 

It's ridiculous that, when her phone buzzes in her hand, Liz has a wild moment where she thinks it's Jim. Close enough, it's Matt, but still. 

"Hey." She and Matt are friends, that's why she picks up. He's probably got his own hotel room anyway. "What time is it over there, it's like eight in the evening here?" 

"I think Singapore is a solid twelve hours ahead of DC, so eight in the morning of the next day," he tells her. Probably just as hot there, too. 

"Well, as much as I appreciate a spontaneous call from the future," Liz says, shifting on the couch. "Why're you calling me when you should be getting ready for the North Koreans?" 

"I'm not worried about the North Koreans," he crows with thick and false bravado, and Liz giggles. "No, i just wanted your advice on some producer things." He can't see it, but her left eyebrow is at her hairline. 

"You've been in this business longer than me," Liz reminds him. "Like, a lot longer. What could I possibly be able to help you with?" 

"You're more well traveled than me." True. "So, I was just wondering-wait, hold on a sec?" There's nothing better for her to do, so Liz does, indeed, hold on for a sec. 

It was Matt's decision to make his room the one that doubles into an office space for this trip. But Jim still feels guilty about it, so he's the one who gets ice from the machine down the hall. After all, poor Matt has had to put up with him moping and being a sad sack the whole trip. The least he can do is get to sit around before they have to go deal with He Who Must Not Be Named and Kim Jong Un. 

Matt's on the phone when Jim gets back, with what he assumes is either family or a work thing. Jim closes the door quietly, sits himself down on the bed and thinks about checking Twitter. 

"Wait, hold on a sec?" Jim looks up and Matt's beckoning him over furiously. "For you," he mouths. Jim's first, confused response is to shake his head. If someone wants to talk to him, they can call him. They're not calling Matt. "Take it." And he looks so insistent about it, like he might actually forcibly press the phone to Jim's ear if he doesn't take it, that Jim feels compelled to take it. 

"Jesus," he mutters, but grabs the phone anyway, not even checking who it is. "Acosta." There's a breath of static on the other end of the line. 

"Uh, hi." 

Jim's stomach bottoms out, and for a second it feels as if someone's socked him in the gut. He's not sure whether he wants to kill Matt, whose face is perfectly bland, or kiss him in gratitude. 

"Hey. Hi. Um, give me a minute." Jim goes out onto the balcony of the room, and hopes he hasn't been spastic enough that Liz thinks he's having a stroke. "Sorry, just. Um. How are you?" Liz gives a dry laugh on the other end, and Jim wants to smack himself. 

"How are _ you _?" Fair enough answer. 

"Right," Jim says, before clearing his throat. "Listen, this wasn't my idea. Just so you don't think I'm trying to ambush you or anything."

"I don't." She doesn't sound angry with him. Doesn't sound like she's just trying to wait until he leaves her alone and she can go back to cutting his face out of pictures, because based on how well he knows her, she doesn't mind burning bridges with people she thinks deserves it. And doesn't he deserve it? "I'm just." Liz pauses, and when she starts again, her voice is a touch lighter. "Matt's playing matchmaker with us?" 

"I know," Jim says, somehow with a chuckle. "I'm as shocked as you are." 

"He was very crafty about it, you know," Liz tells him, and there's a rustle on her end of the line. Jim tries to picture where she is, tries to picture her the way he does when he can't see her face and he misses her. 

"Was he?" Liz doesn't want to hear his morose thoughts on a situation of his own making. 

"He pretended he needed to ask me for advice about something." Jim hums. "Yeah. Never mind that you two have almost fifty years more experience than me combined." Normally, he has to try not to wince when Liz talks about his age, or feel like a lecherous old man who took advantage of a younger woman for sex. Not that she thinks so, and that's why she teases him about it, and it just feels so good to hear it right now. 

"You're one of the best at what you do. I'd ask you for advice," he says without thinking. "In a heartbeat." Liz sucks in a breath, and of course she probably doesn't want him showering compliments when they might have just broken up a few days ago. "I'm sorry, I didn't-"

"Can I just ask you something?" she asks, before he can say anything else. 

"Of course." 

"This wasn't you just trying to end things, was it?" Something tightens in Jim's chest. "I'm sorry for going around in circles on this but I think it's a fair thing to ask." 

"It is fair." It's more than fair, he'd probably be going back and forth on that as well, if the roles were reversed. "And it's not that, I promise. It's everything else." Liz hums over the phone, and Jim is seized with a sudden and inexplicable urge to scrub the last few days clean from the historical record. "Are we over, Elizabeth?" She's quiet for a moment. 

"Do you want us to be over?" she asks. 

"No." It's so ridiculous. He's the one who first brought up this idea of them breaking up, before he left, and anyone looking at this from the outside would be expecting him to answer yes to that question. But Jim's done many things that he didn't want to do. He didn't agree to a custody deal balanced heavily against him because he _ wanted _ to. 

"You _ don't _ ," Liz says carefully. "You tried to break up with me and now you apparently _ don't _ want to?" Jim opens his mouth to protest, but she cuts him off. "Wait. I'm not going to do this." 

"And what does that mean?" He is suddenly nervous, his pulse jackhammering in his throat. 

"We're in a weird space right now," and Jim has to agree, one hundred percent, "but I _ cannot _ do this again, this thing where you think one thing and I think the other and we end up not talking for months on end." Her voice shakes ever so slightly, and this time Jim does wince, because the memory of that mess is still fresh and incredibly painful. "So we're going to talk about it when you get home." 

"We are?" He's not a hopeful man. It's the reason he tried doing this, because he doesn't think any of the insanity will die down for years and that's too much time to ask for. But Jim is hoping now. 

"We are." There's something hopeful in her voice too. "I don't really want us to be over either." 

Liz is the bigger person and doesn't send the middle finger emoji when she gets a winky face text from Matt after she and Jim hang up, which was stilted and awkward because generally their phone conversations end with "I love you" or "I'll talk to you tomorrow", which they can't really do because they're officially in limbo. 

"_We can't even have a _ real _ relationship _ ," he told her, before he left, and Liz had to fight the urge to launch something at the wall or flinch, " _ Maybe it's better if we call it quits before it's too late. _" Anybody whose significant other came out and blatantly said that should have blocked them on all their social media by now and dumped their things unceremoniously on the lawn. 

Instead they're going to have a talk. And she's at his house watering his plants, because he gave her a key this past January and the plants need watering. There's a voice in Liz's head calling her an idiot, the biggest idiot in DC, if not the whole country. Dump him, Liz, it's been a mere smattering of days and this is already an undue amount of heartache that he's caused. Dump him.

But she can't. It's the same reason why her issue with the death threats have always been about how they make Jim feel, how the affect him, less about any fears of repercussions on her. That's never been her concern. Jim's been her concern. 

And she's been his. It's why they're in this mess now, he said as much. His concern is how things affect her; her concern is how things affect him. And that's enough to almost end a relationship? That's enough to nearly cause them to implode, to put them in this bizarre suspended animation, this arrested development they find themselves in?

"Can people really break up over being too in love?" she wonders aloud. The plants don't answer, don't say anything. Not that Liz was expecting them too, but she suddenly finds herself unbearably lonely. At least her apartment has a puppy at the moment. There's nothing in this house, and something hot presses against her eyes as she thinks of Jim here, alone. 

Her throat is still tight when she gets back to her car, and Liz doesn't even feel a little bit guilty about the swiped bottle of bourbon sitting in the passenger seat. For one, Jim drinks too much. For two, it can be payment for the plants. For three, maybe she wants to indulge in some bourbon and sad reflection too. 

He finally starts sleeping again after they talk on the phone. Not particularly well, waking up in fits and starts the way he does when he's stressed, but it's better than the insomnia that plagued him in Canada, where he spent the nights staring at his ceiling and feeling somehow both incredibly exhausted and wired at the same time. 

The poor attempt at sleeping are leaving him with a killer headache though, and as much as Jim hates being vocal when his mood is crabby, he just can't help it today. 

He snaps at Matt, he's short with almost everyone, any time the North Koreans even open their mouths he wants to snarl at them to shut up until they stop making the lives of ordinary citizens a living Hell. And that doesn't even touch on the amount of livid he feels every time he sees an administration official. Jim feels dirty for that. He's an American on foreign soil and he should be supporting his country in this time. 

But every time he sees Sarah, sees Stephen, sees He Who Must Not Be Named himself, he just remembers that shocked, betrayed look on Liz's face. The hurt, the way she blinked in surprise as if he'd struck her. And that was because of him, yes, but it all started with the climate of hatred and fear and contempt that they started, all because they can't handle the truth. 

They can't handle what he has to say, what the press corps has to say, what the American people deserve to hear, and he has to suffer for it? What kind of bullshit is that? 

"You're shaking," Kaitlan hisses in his ear, and Jim almost jumps a foot in the air. "How much coffee have you had?" 

"Believe it or not, none." He wasn't really in the mood for caffeine when he woke up. 

"OK, how much alcohol?" Kaitlan doesn't particularly like him, and sometimes it shows. She probably thinks he's a showboat, an attention whore, a grandstander. A cradle robber too, given how close she and Liz are in age. Most of the time, Jim doesn't mind that she doesn't like him. You can't be friends with everyone, though Lord knows he's spent the better part of his life trying. He doesn't even mind it today, he just doesn't have the energy to care. 

"I'll let you know after they walk by," Jim says instead of opting for a more bitter comeback, and moves to stand closer to Matt. 

"You OK?" He'll apologize to everyone for his behavior later, because he doesn't particularly like being an asshole, but he still tries to shoot Matt a genial smile. "You seem a bit on edge." 

"Personal stuff," Jim mutters, like it's an inside joke between them. "And it's been a long trip." Matt looks sympathetic, because he knows. They're friends and he tried to help, with the phone call. It's unexpected and Jim feels so suddenly starved for affection that he wants to take his friend's hand and squeeze it in gratitude. Well, to be honest he'd like to take Liz's hand, but she's not here. 

And then He Who Must Not Be Named shows up, with Kim Jong Un, and all the personal stuff is thrown out the window as Jim decides to be himself and shout out questions that'll earn him Sarah and Raj annoyed and up his ass once they're back home. And now he's angry again, angry enough to grouse with other reporters, louder than he usually would be, once the politicians have left. 

He doesn't remember to check whether or not any of the mics are still hot. 

Twitter, Liz discovers as she settles on the couch with her stolen bourbon, is in a lather because a hot mic caught Jim saying _ fuck_. She isn't even close to buzzed but it's enough to make her genuinely amused. For one, he's a grown man, he'll occasionally use language stronger than you'll find in an episode of Sesame Street. For two, it's almost funny that the people who shout a daily stream of profanity laced abuse at Jim are clutching their pearls because he dropped as much foul language as a PG-13 movie. 

Brad Parscale wants his press credentials revoked. Sure, that'll happen. They'll rescind a hard pass because someone said a bad word that was caught on a hot mic. Last time that happened the guy on the hot mic got elected to the White House.

Liz would almost call Jim about it, to laugh and snark and make fun of idiot Republicans, but they're in limbo. They're paused, on a timeout. They shouldn't call each other at all. But, speak of the Devil, as if she conjured him just by thinking of him, his name and his picture pop up on her phone screen. Liz puts down her stolen bourbon, not even opened yet and picks up. It's Jim, of course she picks up. 

"Un-fucking-believable," is the first thing he says, before she can even say hello. Liz laughs. 

"Check your room for a wiretap before you start using indecent language, Jim." He huffs a laugh too, and Liz can picture him, salt and pepper hair in disarray and more than a little annoyed, given how petty/bitchy he's been on social media.

"You think Zucker will fire me for this?" he jokes. Liz leans back, and feels something in her shoulders relax. This is their normal, this is who they are as a couple. It feels good to get back to that place. "After all, this is the single greatest scandal that the network has ever dealt with." 

"Oh yeah, you shouting questions and saying a bad word are definitely on par with, like, Lou Dobbs promoting birtherism on our air." On the other line, Jim groans theatrically, and Liz bites off another laugh before it can start. 

"I forgot that Lou Dobbs used to work for this network," and he sounds legitimately depressed about it. "How dare you remind me that I have something in common with Lou Dobbs." 

"OK, first of all, I never said that," Liz clarifies, shifting so that she's lying back on the couch, head leaning against the armrest, the bourbon forgotten. "I reminded you that Lou Dobbs once shared a network with us, but if Dobbs did what you just did people would be way less turned on." 

"Turned on?" There's a smile in his voice. 

"Well, once you get passed the terrible profanity, it does sound kind of hot." 

"You think it's hot?" This is dangerous territory. It's flirting; they're flirting like everything's normal and they're both a bit revved up and looking to release some tension together, on opposite ends of the world, phones hot against their faces. 

"You know me." Liz keeps her voice light and what she says next, she says without even fully thinking it through. "I think a lot of what you do is hot." Dangerous. Dangerous dangerous dangerous. There's a pause in the repartee, somehow both easy and loaded. Her hand is on her thigh. It really wouldn't take that much for to trail her fingers higher, and she is trailing her fingers higher, very very slowly because they're in limbo and this is the murkiest of any waters they've ever been in, sexually. 

And they used to have sex while he was married. 

"What are you doing right now?" Something dips, in his voice, and Liz has to wonder if he's alone in his hotel room. Hesitating, just like she is, ever so slightly shaking with uncertainty and want. 

"I'm alone." Liz clears her throat. "Andra and Patrick are in Boston so it's just me." He knows the implications of that, and she finds herself wondering if Jim's trying to picture her too, if he's trying to place where she is in her apartment and what she looks like right now, alone. 

"What are you wearing?" he asks, proving her right. Liz laughs, just a short burst of a giggle, and she hears a chuckle on the other end of the line. "I know how that sounds, but I'm not trying to be sexy on purpose, I'm legitimately curious." 

"Ah, it's fine," she says. "It's actually your JMU sweatshirt, funnily enough." She likes it. It's soft and big on her and warm and she, fuck it, she misses him. Her hand moves higher, and on the other line, across an ocean, still in limbo, she hears the soft sound of Jim's sigh. 

They've done this before, it's not the first time Liz has had one hand between her legs and the other clutching tightly at her cell, panting into the phone while Jim's breathing goes ragged on the other end. But it's different now, because just a few days ago he told her he wanted to split up because of the fact that the world's kept on going to hell in a handbasket. And Liz shouldn't want someone who's willing to throw in the towel like that, sexually or romantically. 

But here she is, wanting, letting herself slip into the headspace where she can believe it's Jim, Jim touching her, his fingers sliding in and out, making her feel _good_ and relieving some of the tension that's lived in her body for the last few days, and it doesn't matter all that much that they could be ending this relationship in a few days, she misses him and she wishes he was here with her. 

There must be something in the sounds Liz is making that changes, that clues him in that she's feeling some kind of emotion and that she's close. Because all it takes is him to say "Elizabeth," in more a moan than anything else and she comes, with a noise caught between a whimper and a sob stuck in her teeth. Liz assumes he does too, given the sudden quiet on his end of the line as well. 

If Jim asked her right now to give him the big redo and pretend that the last few days never happened, she'd give it to him. 

Brad Parscale is still mad at him. Maybe for the shouted questions, maybe for the profanity, maybe just because Parscale sucks. It's not the first time he's demanded the removal of the hard pass, though just one time would have been plenty fine by Jim's standards. Ordinarily, he'd be musing over Parscale's vitriol as they set up shop for the Trump-Kim press whatever it's supposed to be, but there's something else dominating his brain. 

If you sort of kind of have phone sex with your sort of kind of girlfriend, does that mean you two aren't sort of kind of broken up?

"They wouldn't actually take my hard pass, would they?" he asks, turning to Peter Alexander. Peter blinks up at him from where he's glancing at his phone. 

"No, I don't think they're gonna take your pass," he tells him. "You're just in a mood cuz you've had a weird week." Which Peter knows because Jim cracked almost immediately and told him everything once they landed back in Quebec.

"Has it really been that noticeable?" Peter nods, and Jim resists the urge to cringe in on himself. He's knows Peter is right, that he's had quite the week, but he still feels like he should go around to every reporter in their increasingly crowded room and personally apologize for his behavior. 

"To be fair I don't think anyone's surprised." He might be winding up to a point but Jim needs to get his feelings off his chest or he'll explode.

"Am I the worst person in the world?" he asks. Peter looks at him as if he's grown a second head. "I tried to fix things for Liz and I just made it even worse. What kind of person does that?" Peter jerks his head over to a corner before heading over there, and Jim dutifully follows. He suddenly feels very, very tired. 

"Okay, first of all, you're not the worst person in the world," Peter tells him. "Real life is just messy. Road to Hell and all that." Jim clenches his jaw and nods. "Your girlfriend isn't your child. You treated her like one and she got upset. That doesn't mean she hates you, or that she won't ever forgive you, or that you're a horrible human being. It just means you're a human being. You make mistakes."

"Yeah." The aides start signaling that it's time to get into their places, that Trump and Kim are gonna come out and proclaim victory together, but Peter still has something to say. 

"You made _ fixable _ mistakes." 

She's finally decided to crack open the bottle of bourbon she swiped from his house. Liz remembers a conversation she and Jim had once, around this time last year, during one of the foreign trips Trump went on while they were still working together. Was it Riyadh? Maybe it was Riyadh, Liz isn't sure, she's a bit tipsy right now. 

"_It feels like these foreign trips seem to last forever_," he'd told her, as they both lay in bed and procrastinated packing up before the plane ride the next morning. "_And yet, it also feels like they're over in a second. It's weird_." Liz had laughed and kissed his cheek, reveled in the feel of his fingers in her hair. 

Now, the only thing on her lips is the sting and taste of bourbon. It's almost cloyingly sweet, like a poor imitation of what she really wants, which is Jim being sweet, with her, in her tiny apartment given that she's alone and the puppy is asleep. And Liz is not entirely sober, so she ends up dialing his number. But she is sober enough to appreciate that it goes to voicemail because he's busy or maybe he's asleep. 

"Hey, I was just thinking." The words come without her really thinking about it. "If you want, I can pick you up at the airport, instead of you having to deal with the cab line. Just let me know what you want." 

It's what Liz needs, really, from all of this, for him to tell her what he wants. Her? Someone else, again? Break up, or no break up? A public relationship? More secrecy? 

"All right, bye." The _ I love you _ is right there, on the tip of her tongue, as she hangs up, and a part of her is relieved. She has a tendency to hold grudges when angered, sometimes without even meaning to, and there's a part of her that just needed to know that not even her subconscious wants to hold this whole debacle against Jim. 

Liz sets her phone down and decides it's a good night to go to town on the entire bottle of bourbon, just for the hell of it. 

When he hasn't been sleeping, Jim's in flight entertainment has been listening to Liz's voicemail on a loop. It's not very long, unfortunately, but it's her voice, talking to him, and it's one of the best sounds in the world. Jim knows he's smitten, he's fine with that, it's been that way for a few years now.

He also knows that he shouldn't take Liz up on her offer. Not because he wants to avoid her, just because if they're about to have a loaded talk she shouldn't be chauffeuring him around as well. It seems like common courtesy, or maybe the sun in Hawaii is frying his brain. It's incredibly warm here, and the sleep he was able to get on Air Force was sporadic and not nearly enough before they stopped to refuel. 

"You wanna get a picture with Sarah?" Steve Holland asks without preamble as he strolls up to him. Jim has to take a few moments, running through all of the reporters with them on the trip and coming up empty on anyone named Sarah. It takes Steve physically tilting his head towards the person in question, and Jim gapes at him as though he'd asked if they wanted to go to a strip club. 

"_Sanders? _" Steve nods, and Jim resists the urge to violently shake his head and give himself a mild concussion. "You know she doesn't like me, right?"

"Well-"

"I'm honestly pretty sure she hates me." Which is fine, because Jim has felt himself tip towards there too, with very little guilt about it given how much of his teeth he's ground down in the past year alone, just having to listen to her speak. 

"I'm sure Sarah doesn't hate you," Steve tells him. "You two just aren't professionally cordial." 

"We're not personally cordial either, you know," Jim responds. "It's not like she and I snarl in the briefing room and then I'm treating her to a fancy candlelight dinner. She's married." _ And I'm thoroughly unavailable _. Steve chuckles, and then forcibly grabs his arm and steers him towards where Sarah is hunched over her BlackBerry. 

"Hey Sarah!" Steve says brightly, and Jim manages an awkward wave. Sarah narrows her eyes at them. "You wanna get a picture?" 

"Why?" she asks slowly, and Steve shrugs. 

"Memento of the occasion for the kids?" he suggests. 

"Or for the gram," Jim mumbles, and Steve manages to take his phone out while chuckling. 

"I don't really want to take a picture with you," Sarah says, staring directly at him. Steve makes a sound like he's choking, and Jim isn't sure whether or not he wants to start laughing or launch his phone at the side of the plane. 

"It's only a few seconds, Sarah," is what he says instead, and that seems to cajole her enough into posing for a few moments while Steve does the honors. Jim is very sure his smile will look forced. "There. That wasn't so bad, was it?" Sarah glares at him. Jim has no idea if her eye makeup looks bad today or not. 

"What’s the point? You’re just gonna go back and say bad things about us," she says, almost petulantly. Jim doesn't say anything, just smiles and hopes it looks polite before he decides he's had enough of mingling and returns to his seat on Air Force One. When he opens his phone, it's still on his voicemail page. And Jim has very little desire to keep on trying to sacrifice his chances at happiness for the sake of this administration. 

_ [Jim] Re: you picking me up, I would love that, if you're able. Thank you. _

_ [Elizabeth] I'm able. No problem. _

Liz hates the airport when she's traveling herself, and standing in it just waiting to pick someone up feels like torture. The people who stand at the bottom of escalators holding signs with the names of people who've hired car services need raises, in her opinion. She's been spending the last few minutes on her phone, mostly fielding texts from Andra who thinks that she's acting ridiculous. 

Maybe she is. Liz is fine with that. 

"Hey." There's a light touch on her elbow, and Liz makes a sharp _ gah! _ sound. Immediately, Jim takes a step back. "Sorry. I called your name and it didn't seem like you heard me, so...Sorry." 

"It's fine." 

He looks good. It's Jim, he always looks good, which would be annoying if Liz didn't enjoy his good looks so much. He also looks almost nervous, as if he's worried she's going to smack him right across the face in a crowded airport. Liz does not, in fact, smack him across the face in a crowded airport; the thought had never even crossed her mind. Instead, she wraps an arm around his shoulders and tugs him close, tucks herself against his chest and then closer when he gets over his momentary surprise and holds her. Just on impulse. 

Because it feels good to have him back home again. 

The Instagram death threats are coming in at the worst possible time. Jim doesn't want to focus on that, on them, he's in a car and Liz's knuckles are white on the steering wheel. It makes him feel guilty all over again, that she might be nervous in his presence. Peter Alexander's voice rings in his head. 

_ You made fixable mistakes. _

Jim shuts notifications off of Instagram and Twitter before shoving his phone back in his bag. Liz glances over at him, and he drinks in the one shot he has of her face, big dark eyes and long lashes and soft blond hair before she turns her gaze back to the road. 

"Everything okay?" she asks as they pull up to his house. She has a button to open his garage door. He gave it to her. He feels like something of an idiot for only noticing the small, intimate details of their relationship now that he might have ruined it, now that they're having a talk that might end with them parting ways. He swallows and pushes the morbidity out of his mind. His mother used to say, _ No use crying over spilled milk _. 

"Everything's fine," Jim tells her. And it's silence again as the car is parked, as they get out and he brings his carry on into his house with her at his heels. Thick, heavy silence, weighed with implication and meaning. His house feels cold, lonely, empty. No pets, no children, and maybe no love. Just him and his floorboards and ceiling and walls. 

"So how bad is the jetlag?" Jim shrugs, shifting his weight from foot to foot. 

"Not that bad," he says. "You know me, I'm not all that affected by it." Liz nods, and plays with a frayed thread at the end of the sleeve of her cardigan. "Are you feeling...fine?" She's more composed than he is, usually. She nods again. 

"Yeah, I just." She takes a few steps towards him, and so does he, almost subconsciously, like a gravitational pull of some kind. "It's been a week. I missed you." It's like a dream, when he reaches for her, twines an arm around her waist, under her sweater, and pulls her closer. "Is that all right?" 

_ It's all right, _ is what Jim would have said if he hadn't kissed her. Because he shouldn't kiss her. They should be talking; he shouldn't be kissing her. But Liz is right, he's been gone for a week, and he's missed her too, so much. He still has one arm around her, and a hand braced on the back of her neck. She has her fingers carding through his hair, and her teeth pulling at his bottom lip ever so slightly, and he groans. 

Kissing Liz has always been something of a hypnotic thing, something he can lose himself in, so he doesn't realize that they've been stumbling backwards until she's pressed up against a wall, holding his face in her hands and kissing him with much more intent than just a simple kiss. And a part of Jim's brain knows that they should stop but he's already shrugging off his blazer, and she's trying to maneuver out of her cardigan and keep on kissing him and someone could shoot him, shoot him right now, and he'd die a happy man. 

His hands on her waist, untucking her shirt from her skirt and Liz is trailing her hands down to his belt buckle before she turns her head away from him, half gasping. And he stops, instantly, makes to back away. And he would have, if she hadn't curled her fingers in his shirt collar and almost forcibly anchored him to the spot, as if determined he not move beyond her grasp. 

"I want to." She sounds breathless when she says it, looks kissed and beautiful. "Believe me. But." 

"We have a schedule talk," he finishes, trying to comb his mussed hair with his fingers. Liz huffs, and drops her head so it's resting on his shoulder. Her hands are still on him; they burn slightly. 

"You've been traveling, you should take a shower," she tells him. "So should I, really." 

"Together?" He's only half joking, and he can almost feel Liz smile against him. 

"No. And you should make your's cold if you don't want me distracted later on." Well. Even if they do break up at least Jim can take comfort in the knowledge that she found him sexually desirable until the very end. 

Liz is profoundly grateful that she still has some clothes over at his place, so she's wearing her own things and running her fingers through wet hair when Jim finally gets back to his living room. He looks tired, dark circles prominent under his eyes, and the part of Liz that was determined to let them have sex regardless of whether or not they split up wants to wrap her arms around him all over again. Is that pathetic?

"Am I pathetic?" she asks him, before he's even taken two steps towards her. Jim looks shocked. 

"What?"

"Andra thinks I should have dumped you," Liz says plainly. "She also wanted me to go scorched Earth on all your things, but I drew the line at that. So, you're welcome." She's sitting on the couch, and rather than sit next to her, Jim decides to sit across from her on the coffee table, for some reason. 

"You're not pathetic, Elizabeth," he tells her, very earnestly. "And I'm glad that you didn't take Andra's advice." She's not pathetic, according to him, he said she's not, so it's not pathetic when she reaches out and takes his hand in her's. 

"I didn't want to dump you." He nods, looking firmly at their hands and not at her face. "I still don't. But if your first instinct, every time things aren't going mildly well in the world, is to try and end things 'for my protection' and not even try to talk to me about it, then I don't see how this is going to work in the long term." She can see his jaw muscles working.

"I am sorry about that." He moves like he's trying to scoot a chair closer, except he's sitting on a table so he ends up almost falling off. And Liz finds herself, not for the first time in her life, of being in the position to literally look down on a man normally a full head taller than her, given that Jim's solution to not being able to move closer is to get on his knees, so that they're almost at eye level, with her still on the couch. 

He's still got his hand in her's. 

"But?"

"These problems aren't just going to go away." Jim still won't look at her when he says it. "The safety issues and the death threats and what people will say or try to do about it, that's not going to be over for another two years, and that's me being optimistic about politics. We're going to keep dealing with this, _you're_ going to keep having to deal with this."

"And I don't mind having to deal with it, you know that." Now Jim does look at her, and his eyes are redrimmed and slightly horrified. And still exhausted, which makes her heart ache just a bit more. 

"You are twenty six years old-"

"I'm aware."

"You are _twenty six_ years old," he repeats, like it's some big important thing. Liz bites down the urge to volley back his own age, because ideally there is a point to what he's saying. "You shouldn't have to deal with these things, or make yourself not mind that you're dealing with these things. I'm not saying that you can't," he adds hurriedly when Liz opens her mouth. "I know that you can. You're." He pauses, and the hand that isn't holding her's is stroking gently along her skin.

"Tougher than I look?" Liz suggests, and Jim nods, smiling slightly. "Exactly. So there shouldn't be an issue here. I can handle myself, and I don't mind having to handle myself, so if we want to have an actual functioning and long term relationship, we need to keep that in mind."

"Elizabeth, the risks-" Jim starts, and Liz's control breaks. 

"Look at me." He looks at her, and, almost in spite of herself, her hands on her face. Like she's about to kiss him. Except she doesn't want to kiss him. She wants him to hear her. "I know that there are risks. I am well aware of that, I understand them. And I am still here anyway. So what does that say?" Jim swallows. "To me, it says that I love you. A lot. A ridiculous amount, really. More than I've ever loved anyone, and I mean that." 

"I love you too," he manages to squeeze in. It's still one of the best sounds in the world, hearing Jim say that.

"I love you, you love me, and all of this other superfluous stuff, the white noise, because it is ultimately white noise, it doesn't matter. If you don't want to break up," and he shakes his head, "and I know that I don't want to break up, then we need to agree to stop thinking you know better than me and vice versa and make decisions together. Mutually. As a couple." Liz feels empty, like she's been holding that entire speech since the day he left for Quebec, like a weight on her chest. "Okay?" 

"Okay." And there is no sweeter feeling, in that moment, than the relief that floods through her. "And I'm sorry, about all of this. If I could take it back, I would." 

"I know." For a moment, it looks as if he's going to lean in and kiss her again. Instead, Jim just drops his head on her shoulder and wraps his arms tight around her. Liz holds onto him, and strokes his hair, and feels safe and fundamentally happy again for the first time in a week. They're not breaking up, and if she wants to spend the entire weekend holed up in his house with him, she absolutely can. And a part of her wants to.

They stay like that, in an embrace, for a really long time, for what feels like forever. And when they pull away, it's another series of frantic kisses and they just barely manage to make it into his bedroom on time. 

The jetlag kicks in at night, when Liz is asleep, tucked against his chest, essentially dead to the world. He's wide awake and staring at his ceiling, at the sliver of moonlight carving itself through the window. He would like to think that he's thinking deep thoughts, important thoughts about love and his relationship and the world as a whole. Instead,

Make up sex is overrated. 

It was fun, as it always is, and it felt good, as it always did, even better given that the closest he'd come to sexual contact in the past week was the image of Liz behind his eyelids and her name on his lips and a hand on his dick, but still. Make up sex requires that something be made up, and Jim never wants to repeat this for as long as he's alive. He doesn't want to hurt like this, and he doesn't want to make Liz hurt like this. Ideally, he would keep them here, in a bed, in love, thoroughly isolated from the harsher aspects of the world they live in. 

Jim doesn't want to get caught up in his own head, so he just pulls Liz closer to him and presses a kiss to her hair. She doesn't stir, and Jim goes back to staring at the ceiling. He still feels tired, like he has all week, but not in the same way.

Physically, he's tired, borderline exhausted almost, and wishing that time could catch up with him and help him fall asleep. Emotionally, for the first time in what feels like a long time, he doesn't feel exhausted or sad or self loathing. He feels content; he feels happy. He feels whole. 


End file.
